With rep access to physicians waning, point-of-care communications are trying to fill a blind spot in pharma's marketing repertoire. Going forward, how can marketers ensure that patients and physicians aren't overwhelmed by these tactics and, as a result, become turned off by them?

Between December 2011 and August 2017, physician availability to see a sales rep decreased from 77.2% to 59.4%, a 23% drop. In the same period, the proportion of physicians who completely shut off access nearly doubled — from 22.8% to 40.6%. Locking out sales reps is a trend that crosses practice specialties. The number of facilities providing zero access is increasing, regardless of site ownership, the size of the practice, or patient volume.1

Carpet-bombing physicians with content would likely exacerbate the problem. A 2016 study funded by the American Medical Association concluded that physicians spend 27.0% of their total time in front of a patient and 49.2% of their time entering data into electronic health records and on desk work. Twenty-one of the 57 physicians in the study recorded the time they spent on work after leaving their offices. Each member of this group of 21 spent an additional 1 to 2 hours entering data into their electronic health record systems.2 Their time, and likely their desire, to read product literature is at a premium.

Given this reality, the key to avoiding messaging overload and maximizing engagement is to tailor the content delivery to the target’s preference. Communications must be timely, meaningful, and relevant. Patients and physicians experience our brands through many micromoments across channels. We combine search engine data, market research data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning to match the channel and message to the customer’s intent and need. Practically speaking, Arteric uses AI to mine pay-per-click, analytics, and Search Console data for customer insights and to create content that directly answers visitors’ questions. This strategy drives personalized customer journeys in a narrow communication channel. We’re actively researching and developing our technology for integration into chatbots that will assist patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs) in navigating disease education and brand websites.

It’s early in the lives of these AI-powered, high-precision campaigns, but the results are promising. We’re identifying important signals hidden within hundreds of thousands of customer interactions with our customers’ brands, to identify new customer segments and create personalized content. In one case, the data enabled the client to develop content and campaign strategy for a previously unknown demographic. This blog article and a podcast that streams from Life Science Marketing Radio explain how we leveraged AI to avoid messaging overload.

Technologies like AI and machine learning uncover insights that help brands provide the most meaningful information to HCPs — if these tools are applied properly and to an appropriate business problem. Contact us at 201.558.7929 to start a conversation to maximize the precision and impact of your content.